Commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. Day—that’s today—by learning a bit about the man who received the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize for his leadership in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. These are some of my favorite Web sites about King and the history of the movement:

Civil Rights, 1954 to 1963This timeline links to King's “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and John F. Kennedy’s June 11, 1963, speech supporting passage of the Civil Rights Act.

The Rise and Fall of Jim CrowThis Web site for PBS’ program explains the laws that enforced segregation from the end of Reconstruction through the 1960s.

OK, that’s not actually true. But I feel like I am. I’ve been learning all kinds of interesting facts about US history and geography while editing Family Tree Magazine State Research Guides like crazy for a compilation CD we’re planning to put out this spring.

Oh, haven’t we mentioned that already? Yes, the CD will contain our research guides for all 50 states, plus bonus material including help tracing roots in Washington, DC, and Puerto Rico. So I’m back to reading about Mississippi school censuses and the Vicksburg National Military Park, and you can bet we’ll keep you updated.

On this blog and in our January 2008 issue, we introduced you to some batch photo-scanning services that will quickly and affordably digitize hundreds and even thousands of family photos. The drawback with really old photographs, of course, is you'd have to let those irreplaceable images of your possession.

A Seattle company has the remedy to that dilemma: Memeria will actually bring a high-volume scanner to your house and scan your photos on site—accomplishing in a couple of hours what might take you weeks or months to do on your home scanner, says Memeria president Anthony Miller. "This gives people more time to work on their scrapbooks and genealogy instead of scanning."

The service costs 25 cents per photo, with minimum orders ranging from $50 to $200. Memeria currently serves only the Seattle area, but plans to expand. If you live nearby and are considering a photo digitization project, give the service a look.

This weekend I made my first excursion to a Family History Center. Practically every article we publish in Family Tree Magazine recommends going to your local FHC, not only because you have access to the Family History Library’s massive collection of microfilm but also because the volunteers are so helpful!

I gathered my ever-growing file folder of notes and photocopies and headed to the FHC in Norwood, Ohio, to see what I could find. The center is only open for a few hours a day, and since it was a Saturday, there were researchers at nearly every microfilm and computer station.

I struck up a conversation with the volunteers and learned quite a bit about their holdings. The Norwood FHC has many rolls of microfilm on permanent hold from the FHL, and quite an impressive selection of Cincinnati-specific records. They've got most of their rolls of film indexed in the card catalog you see above. (The volunteers recommend asking before you request any roll of microfilm to double-check if it is available locally. You could save $5.50!)

Most of my family is in Northeastern Ohio, but I did find a roll of Cuyahoga County birth records in the local holdings. One of the volunteers retrieved it for me and helped me get set up at a microfilm reader, and I began poking around the index and the recorded births. My great-grandmother's birth record didn't appear to be on the roll, but the index for her year did not seem to be complete. An FHC volunteer told me that births in the early 1900s were often recorded months or even years after the fact, so there's no telling where my great-grandmother would show up.

I did make one big discovery while I was at the FHC—I found out that I get very queasy looking at microfilm. Will this be the end of my genealogy quest?

OFT users have complained of lost notes (notes are private in AWT, or take the form of stories and comments), data transfer errors and displeasure with the AWT system.

The Generations Network's blogger, Kenny Freestone, says a heretofore unknown GEDCOM format problem has caused errors in about 30 percent of the migrations from OFT to AFT, and that the problem will be fixed.

In the meantime, if you have a tree on OFT, don’t delete it (migrating your tree doesn't automatically delete it), and go ahead and export a GEDCOM and save it to your hard drive.

Rather than find matches in genetic genealogy databases (we’d love to see that utility), these free tools help you learn more about your DNA test results. Three of the tools work using data from the FamilyTreeDNA Web site, so customers of other companies will have to pass on those. The tools include:

FamilyTreeDNA Markers: Use this one to view your Y-chromosome test results from FamilyTreeDNA—just enter your kit and code numbers.

Haplogroups: Anyone who's taken a Y-DNA test can get a pretty good idea of his haplogroup by entering his STR marker values. (If you're a FamilyTreeDNA client, just enter your kit and code number.) As Morse explains, haplogroups are defined by SNP markers, but you usually don’t get SNP values in a Y-DNA test report. STR marker values, though, can predict a haplogroup.

Group Chart: Here, you can generate a DNA chart for a group of people for easier test results comparison. Each group member must have tested with FamilyTreeDNA.

Distances: FamilyTreeDNA clients can use their group chart (generated with the Group Chart tool) to compute the genetic distances among members of the group.

Migration Details: Select your haplogroup from a dropdown menu to get a description of your ancient ancestors’ migrations across the globe. You’ll see shifts in haplogroups and the mutation numbers that defined the shifts, along with the geographic location and time range the mutation took place.

Migration Map: Select your haplogroup to generate a visual representation of the migration details described above.

Schelly Talalay Dardashti has posted a question on her Tracing the Tribe blog: How do people react when you tell them you're a genealogist?

As Schelly writes:

Do they ask how many babies you've delivered—thinking you said gynecologist; what caves or oil fields you've discovered—confusing you with a geologist; or simply think you are strange for happily shlepping through cemeteries looking for dead people (which, you must admit, is a good place to find them)?

A British war blog is getting a lot of attention lately. What’s unusual is that it’s from World War I—in a way.

On WWI: Experiences of an English Soldier, blogger Bill Lamin is posting letters his grandfather William Henry "Harry" Bonser Lamin wrote from the trenches in France, Italy and elsewhere in Europe during World War I. Each letter appears 90 years to the day after it's dated.

The letters, which Lamin found in his parents’ home, are filled with battle descriptions, complaints about tight quarters and spare rations, thanks for parcels from home, and requests for more missives from family. Harry dated this letter July 14, 1917:

I’m in good health but we have had a rough time this last week or two going on working parties at night digging trenches and one thing and another. One night we were between our lines and the Germans but we all came out alright. It’s a bit rough but it might be worse.

The free family networking site Geni has added two features for members. Now you can create a visual history of events in your life by setting up a timeline. Each timeline event, in turn, has its own page, where you can add more information, photos, attendees’ names and comments.

And a new family news page lets you track the latest goings-on in your family—additions to the family tree, birthdays, photos, discussions and more. All your family members’ new events are automatically included on the news page unless the member opts to keep something private. Or, relatives can post directly to the news page.

The New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) ended 2007 with another 3.2 million-plus names in its online databases, thanks in part to more than 100 volunteers who help scan and digitize the paper collections in the society's Boston library.

New databases include Massachusetts Vital Records to 1850 (and a project to add record images is halfway complete), early New York probate records, Connecticut vital records, Massachusetts census records (1855-1865), and New York calendar of wills (1636-1826).

NEHGS marketing director Tom Champoux says in 2008 you can look for significantly more records from Connecticut, New York, New Hampshire and Maine.